Special delivery

A mailman is replacing a hit man on ABC's Dancing With the Stars. John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff Claven on Cheers, will step in for Vincent Pastore, who quit after a week of training. Ratzenberger, 59, had previously turned down an offer to join the cast for the 10- week dance competition because of a scheduling conflict, ABC said Friday. The 60-year-old Pastore, who played a tough-guy mobster on HBO's The Sopranos, said he didn't realize how physically demanding the show would be for him.

Casting call

• Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh have been tapped to costar in ABC's drama pilot Dirty Sexy Money. It centers on an idealistic lawyer (Peter Krause) who gets to represent the Darlings, a rich and powerful family. Sutherland and Clayburgh will play the Darlings' patriarch and matriarch.

• Horatio Sanz is lined up to star in NBC's comedy pilot Business Class.

• Oscar winner Anna Paquin makes her first foray into series television as the lead in True Blood, a drama pilot for HBO.

Chatter

"I've had a couple of people express genuine unease or fear approaching me or talking to me. . . . Anybody who knows me knows that I'm really approachable."

- Zachary Quinto, actor who plays creepy, demented supervillain Sylar on NBC's Heroes

Local ties

Transplanted Coloradan Mara Vanderslice will be Steve Colbert's guest tonight on Comedy Central's Colbert Report. The Fairview High grad runs the Washington, D.C., consulting firm Common Good Strategies, providing outreach in the faith communities for Democratic candidates, according to her mom, Becky Vanderslice of Denver-based Housing Justice! :

9:30 p.m. today, Channel 72